4.0 Tomorrow, what are my plans?

Someone asked me this serious question.

"What are your plans for tomorrow? You guys are still working on Lich King and I know you haven't kept up on the Moonkin changes"

Well, this is true. I haven't kept up to date on anything moonkin besides making sure people played well with eachother on the forums. I did log onto Beta a few times with a friend and test out rotations. I more or less just winged it with a broken chest piece Blizzard gave me and pumped out around 6.2-6.4k dps at 85 on a target dummy I wasn't hitcapped with. Or gemmed, or anything. Gotta love premade toons.

He was hitting around 7k, but also knew his rotation and kept up to date. So that shows how much I really paid attention. I also found a huge hate for things that glow. Flashing things drive me crazy, I just wanna press buttons to make them go away. So I'm going to OCD about it if I need to play Foofy until Cata.

However, I'm still dead set on my Death Knight. Been playing her alot in Beta. I have 3 Dk's. One for 80 testing, one for leveling testing and an 85 premade for max testing. I'm enjoying it alot. Sure the rune system makes me cuss a bit, but its still fun. I also sat down today and talked with our old guild tank who recently got to switch to his DK for DPS, which he has wanted to do for awhile.

We got to talking, and while hes a huge min/maxer and has been a tank for years, he hasn't been too pleased with my live spec or gearing choices. Needless to say, I don't have everything available to me but he knows I'm still trying to get into the hang of things. Especially after being a caster for 5-6 years. Its a change. His main problem was my taunt resists because I refused to glyph Dark Command (well, more like to lazy since I only got in alt runs anyway)

But we sat and talked, theorycrafted a bit. So I don't think hes so "I don't want you tanking" but more of "Well, you are trying Son, Don't be afraid to talk to me" so that makes me happy. Also, I decided on a name for my Death Knight. After all, its a complete 180 switch. A caster to a Melee, DPS to a Tank, Tauren to Goblin. So I made the decision to retire the name Foofy.

I'll still be holding onto it, as well as the other Foof-like names I have. However, I wanted to be someone new. Someone that can't be easily stalked (I say hi and trade and my name floods the place..the tank I just mentioned says I have a fanclub and stalkers :/ ). So, to feel completely new, my name will be changed to:

Bizzlesprout (inc QQ/LOLS/WTFS)

This looks like a Bizzlesprout to me, so I'm happy with it. Especially since I'm the only one with it (for now)

Anyway, back to the question at hand...

4.0, My Plans?

Nothing major. Reforge some stuff, get TauntCapped, Get into some raids, Get 4pc T10 and cooldown my way through Lich King.

Moonkin will be sitting unless needed for Lich King. Nothing more than that. Unless I need to heal my husband for Kara/ZG. Then half the time I just heal him on Fooferd my Shaman.

As I said, Foofy is retiring. Shes an Old cow and needs to go to the Old Cow Home. She might become my Herbalist due to the lovely racial Flower picking speed she will now get. (lol)

Anyway, those are my plans! What are yours?

Fishing with the Rest

Ok, so yesterday we didn't raid, so I decided to get some achievements done on my Death Knight. Mine sweeper was amazingly easy, the wyrmrest daily was done in one shot (they nerfed it :( ), and I killed some turkies and whatnot, but somehow failed.  I'm also slowly exploring all of Azeroth for my Explorer title. After doing it once, I really rather not sit there for several hours going from place to place discovering it all. So I want to take my time. I should 'hopefully' have it done before Xpac.

'Hopefully'...

Anyway, we got several new recruits this week. Picked up a second moonkin who didn't do to bad. The GM was asking me about her dps which for her gear level, is decent. Just a few tweaks and it will be great. That way he has no worries about gearing her up and letting me switch when he feels comfortable. Hes already noticing I'm on my Death Knight more than my Druid. I'm even stomaching to level fishing on her. I've leveled it on my Paladin and my Druid and now my Death Knight is next. After that, its cooking. Cooking is the easy part for me. The only time I had trouble was when you had to be friends/netural with the goblins to get the cooking quest back in BC. Being the Idiot I am, I went Bloodsail first then tried to level cooking....2 years sitting at 225  cooking was fun. It truly was!

Continuing on, I had a random level 1 log onto Staghelm and start talking to me about why I'm doing Death Knight, about how Death Knights Suck. How I should stay moonkin and whatnot. While I understand alot of people want me to stay moonkin, I'm really not doing this because of the eclipse changes. Which is all the guy said I was doing it for.

I've explained before that there are so many factors going on that its just not fun for me anymore.

1) Yes, I hate eclipse
2) Druids have a healing spec available, and I hate healing..it stresses me out
3) Tired of the female tauren broken model. I want to be a goblin come Xpac! And Goblins can't be druids
4) I enjoy tanking, and not feral tanking, plate wearer tanking. Feral druid tanking seemed to easy to me
5) I want to see the game in a new perspective. Not just as druid like I have for the past 5 years
6) Being able to take hits in pvp is fun, especially when I can kill melee who don't have a chance to rape my face in seconds.

(HA YOU DAMN BLADESTORMING WARRIORS! **please note I pvp in WG with PVE gear..don't hate!***)

There are of course several more, but I'm not going to make a huge list about it. But those who are wondering, I am still going to level Foofy. Shes my enchanter after all. I will still be active on TMR. Wolfwood already said he doesn't mind me becoming a Dirty Death Knight as long as I continue to do my job. That means I will still be theorycrafting a bit with Moonkin, but really become more of a follower. This means no Moonkin Raiding Basic's Videos.

So hopefully there won't be anymore questions on the matter. At least I hope so! Anyway, I'm heading off. I have to start packing for a weekend trip with my Husband. Got a Family Picnic in PA we go to. So..

Have a great Weekend everyone and I'll chat with you folks when I get back!

Druid Discussion on Vent with many moonkin

Edited my post to place Murmurs Summary here. He covers everything that we spoke of.

Hey again Druids!

Our first Roundtable discussion has ended and I, personally, think it was amazingly fun and successful. We talked about a wide variety of topics, some of which went off-topic at times, but all of it was in good fun. I'll use this post to highlight some of the fine points of our conversations. Keep in mind when raiding all of this that everything is purely speculation based off on some very limited information. How we think or believe a spell will function may not be accurate, and changes are that it won't be accurate at all, but it's the best that we could come up with with what we have.

Wild Mushroom:

There were many things thrown out about how this spell would function in both PvE and PvP, as well as how the spell would fit within the Balance Druid's rotation.

In PvP, the thoughts were mostly that this would be a primarily surprise or defensive based ability. By defensive, it won't exactly be the same thing as Barkskin, but rather act as more of a 'trap' spell that you have to use proactively. Using the spell overtly offensively might not work out too well since the effect will be fairly easy to avoid. To this end, players will probably have it set somewhere, like near where their healer will use lots of LoS, to set it up a clean burst. For Arena play, it adds some interesting kiting mechanics to how Balance will function. In Battlegrounds, Wild Mushroom will clearly be amazing for choke points and prevent flag caps.

In PvE, the spell holds a lot of potential. The current line of thinking is two-fold. The first thought is that Wild Mushroom will be highly useful during extended periods of movement. This is based on the thought that Wild Mushroom will be limited to a single mushroom at a time and that placing a new mushroom will cause the old one to explode. Since the spell is instant cast and has no cooldown, you could effectively spam the spell while on the move to supplement damage when you can't cast anything else. The other potential use for Wild Mushroom is as an effective 'Cleave' type skill. Generally speaking, Hurricane is only useful when there are a large number of mobs, around 4 or 5, and sometimes there is one 1 or 2 adds that need to be killed. In these situations, Wild Mushroom could provide the highest access to DPS by hitting all the targets more higher amounts of damage.

Other random thoughts on Wild Mushroom are how it could relate to our talents. GC has stated that Wild Mushroom will interact with our talents, but nothing as to how. One of the thoughts that came up with the ability to proc Earth and Moon on multiple targets. Having the 13% spell buff on multiple targets is a very big deal for add fights and AoE encounters, yet only one spec of one class can effectively provide this. Allowing Wild Mushroom to proc Earth and Moon on multiple targets would be a huge boost to group utility and allow AoE content to be easier to balance.

Nature's Torrent:

Since a lot of discussion already took place on this mechanic in the talent preview thread, not too much was talked about this spell. We all agree though that this is going to be one of the key things that can make or break Balance Druids in the next expansion. How it interacts with Eclipse and fits within our rotation is going to be a big players in Cataclysm. I'm personally really excited about it, but only time can tell how it will actually work out.

Eclipse:

Eclipse is getting a major change, yet still too little is known about the effect. We talk a little bit about possible rotations, how things could or could not work, issues that could come up, and how much more awesome it was. Here are things that we talked about.

Eclipse decay - GC has said that Eclipse is probably going to have to have some form of decay. We all agree to this point due to the fact that players really shouldn't be encouraged to go farm up Eclipse power before a pull in order to game DPS. The decay in combat is a little bit more tricky. Having some in combat might be okay, but it all depends on how it works out with movement. If the drain is too step, then it could re-enforce the current system we already have with movement.

Eclipse gain - How rapidly Eclipse is gained or lost is going to be a major factor in just about everything. Right now there are too many systems out there to guess at anything solid.

Moonkin Form:

The controversial topic. Some people hate it still, some people love it. The biggest complain is just that Moonkin Form is too flat right now and really needs to be updated. Blizzard has thankfully said that one is eventually coming, though it may end up being slightly delayed. Hope exists!

Random Talents:

From our thinking, there's going to be quite a few talents that will probably have to be removed. The biggest of these was Nature's Grace. At this point, very few people present seemed to think that a nerf would be enough for this talent and that the best option would simply be to get rid of it completely. Doing so would hurt Balance Druids a lot, obviously, but with a new expansion coming out there is plenty of opportunity to re-balance use around this change. Another talent that is up for debate is Improved Faerie Fire. We know that the +Hit portion of the this talent is going to be removed, however we don't know if anything new is going to be added to it to replace that. Right now, a lot of people seemed to think that merely +3% Crit really isn't interesting enough to keep around. It would be a DPS increase that we certainly take, but it would lose a lot of flavor. Many people would either like to see something else added on to the talent or for the talent to be removed completely.

Improved Moonkin Aura will probably become our talent which allows us to scale Spirit into Hit. Since the talent already does this with Spell Power, it seems most logical that it would be transferred this way. Talents such as Vengeance will most likely stick around, and things like Improved Insect Swarm will probably be expanded upon - even though it will upset Hamlet.



All in all, the whole thing was a lot of fun with so many people stopping by. I pretty sure I can speak for everyone when I say that we all had a great time just talking it up about all the different random things that popped into our heads. With how great this turned out, I'll definitely be continuing this when Beta starts so be on the look out for future posts!

Stay classy Druids,
Murmurs

TORGEN FTW!

(inside joke from vent)

Addon Watch: Ovale

Alot of people use addons to play the Game. Moonkin normally use the universal addon Squawk and Awe. This addon shows you the cooldown of your eclipses and shows when one procs. It also can show you:

Omen of Clarity Proc
4pc Proc
Entangling Roots Timer
Dot Ticks

And much more!

Now, with 3.3.3 patch, the Spell ID for Solar eclipse seemed to break, because of this several people where asking for an update to Squawk and Awe. It came a few hours later but by then I had already went out and about looking for a new addon. Being the idiot I am in raids, I like to see everything that is going on in raid. Especially since I love to handle different roles.

Yes, thats right, Foofy has tank gear and loves to tank! So I love to see how bosses are tanked and what happens to them. As for healing, haven't touched that since Ulduar. However, with a tank set comes Kitty DPS. And I wont lie..I'm a terrible kitty. Which is why I wanted an addon that did both things for me just by allowing me to shapeshift.


Now, there is an addon called Feral By Night, which is very useful for Kitties, however I was spammed with nothing but errors when trying to get it. After an hour or trying to fix it, I just removed it. Then I remembered a post on TMR about a mod called Ovale. Alot of people had their own personal opinions about it as it tells you what to cast next. Alot of people hate this. But Feral by Night is the same way and I don't hear to many people complaining. Then again, the Moonkin Rotation isn't as complexed.

I had tried it out beforehand when the topic was made. I had problems configuring it, understanding it so when I did get it to work, I noticed a few flaws and decided not to use it. Now, I won't lie. If you are a starting moonkin, this addon will help you learn your rotation. Or if you are a raid leader and have several things to keep track of, this addon will help you.

If you are just a pawn dancing around the slimes in ICC and know your rotation like the back of your hand, this addon IS NOT for you.

Since Squawk and Awe was broken for me yesterday, I still had this addon installed, just disabled so I decided to give it a try again. Just something to show me procs. I used the button switch to tell me when eclipse proc'd and it worked wonders. I fixed a few configuration options to where it wouldn't tell me to clip dots. And the best thing is, I go into cat form and it automatically switches to feral for me.

I logged onto my rogue and it worked there too, as well as my warrior and paladin. Which made me smile. A universal addon that when configured correctly will work for you. But as I said, its an addon that tells you what to do and when to do it. THIS ISN'T FOR EVERYONE.

Screenshots:

Here you can see me at the target dummy. I haven't applied anything. My Ovale automatically tells me to apply FF at the start.

After doing so, my icons switch. Normally to IS, then MF, then to wrath. It will continue to show my wrath icon until Eclipse procs or a dot falls off. It caculates the time left on the target dummy with the dot compared to the global cooldown of your actions. So you won't clip if configured right.

Here is a screenshot of everything rolling. As you can see, the Starfall icon is changed to Treants, since I casted Starfall. After treants are casted, Starfall changes back and shows the cooldown for you.


Moving on, when you go into a feral form, it automatically switches its rotation for you. Of course, it seems to go by spec. So if you are moonkin, you may need to hit the target with a random move for the kitty bar to appear.

Off the bat it asks me to cast FFF (Feral Farie Fire) and where you see treants, would be mangle if I was Cat spec. But alas, both my spec's are Moonkin at the moment.

Also, as I said, this Addon picks up other classes to. Rogue, Paladin, Death Knight, and many others.



Q: Will I be using Ovale over Squawk and Awe?
A: Personally, I think I'll hold onto a bit more for now. Atleast until all these hardmodes are cleared.

Q: Any gripes with this addon?
A: A few, mainly the starfall and treants option with the second icon square, but other than that, I enjoy it.

Q: I'm new to being a moonkin, would you recommend this addon?
A: Yes, but be sure to configure it not to clip your dots. Clipping dots is bad.

State of Moonkin, Mind and soul

I'm sure many people have already seen this posted somewhere else, so I won't go into to much detail. Ghostcrawler has stated he wants to give Moonkin more burst in PVP, however he feels that if it runs over into PVE; hes more than certain that we wont complain.

And why would we?


We are being pushed to the bottom of the meters. We used to do great in naxx when we properly scaled. Ulduar we began to move to the middle of the pack, Icecrown; if on a non movement fight, we can still do well, but all the movement on the other fights destroy us. Elemental shaman and Shadow Priest have been given their buffs to help them out. So now I really have to fight to hold my spot on the meters. But to this point, without any real buffs besides bandaids, there isn't much we can do in the end. No amount of min/maxing will fix the gap that Blizzard has put infront of us.

So I'm very curious to see what this "burst" ability will be. Will it be something we already have just with a talent switch? Will it be a new spell? (god I hope so). What? Tell me!

Another thing I wanted to talk about is the state of the Moonkin in World of Warcraft. I've noticing a few of them dying out or other guilds talking to me about their Moonkins. I've done random heroics and had Guild Masters asking me to join their guild so they could kick their Moonkin. Or to teach one how to play. I really don't know whats going on here lately. A lot of Moonkin are getting the sense that they are the best at what they do and don't feel like the need to read up on anything.

I did a video series called Moonkin Raiding Basics. Over time, they have become outdated. With the change in us not having a single rotation but now twisting; the info is outdated. But its become a problem where people don't read the dates where this information is submitted. Or hell, they don't even read the nearly always up to date Raiding Basics Sticky thread.

Are these the types of people giving Moonkin a bad name? I know I'm not the best in the world either, but to be constantly asked to look at others and see what they are doing wrong, you see alot of strange stuff come across your path.

People gemming pure haste, runspeed meta. I've even see a Moonkin with no Hit and not knowing what it was when he applied to a raiding guild. (Yes, 232 Hero as we call it). The weirdest thing I have ever seen though was a Moonkin who actually gemmed Armor pen. I never did figure out why, but its fixed now. But in all seriousness, these people probably make up 60% of the total Moonkin population. With that high of numbers, they are normally seen before the people who know what they are doing. I've seen friends (other Moonkin) turned down from guilds because the last Moonkin they had was terrible and they didn't want a repeat.

So please, read up on this stuff. Figure out that 4k isn't good now adays. Single Target dps testing doesn't use Trees or Starfall or buffs to gage where you are. If you feel you are the best on your server, always know there is someone out there better than you; probably just less known. I'm sure there is someone better than me on my server all the time. I'm always looking at WWS logs to see what I can improve. So far its my dot uptime. I won't lie. I need to work on it. Sometimes I just take to long to get my dots back up, or I clip them by mistake and then I cry.

Either way, LEARN; its good for you! Gives more wrinkles to your brain :D

Whats going on lately?

First all, let me say this.

I am:

• Not the best moonkin around
• Not the smartest Theorycrafter
• Lazy as hell with numbers
• Angry over stupid stuff

With that out of the way, time to get on with this post. This will be a rant because well, I'm a tad bit ticked. Lately there have been alot of "My dps sucks! Please help!" posts going around on both EJ, TMR, and the WoW Druid forums. Curious, I always click these. The problems usually range as follows:

• Bad gearing
• Bad Gems
• Not hitcapped
• Bad Talents
• Wrong Glyphs

These are the common things. Several months ago when Ulduar came out, it was normally along the lines of people just getting used to the new rotations and whatnot. Now its as if people just don't read anymore. Or so I thought.... There is a Basic's Raiding sticky, people read it. But after reading the Wow Forums lately, alot of wrong information is given.

Most people say "Read the stickies". Most people wont. Which is why I made the Raiding Basic's Video. Alot of people hate to read but rather have someone tell them what to do. Thus the video series. So when someone comes into a thread giving wrong info after someone above them posts to read the stickies..who do you think the original poster will listen too? Thats right..the info given. And over 80% of that info is wrong.

A very common thing people are saying is: "You are over hitcap, drop Balance of Power and put points elsewhere"

Well, here is a question, where would you put those points? Why would you waste money in a gear shift that will make you have to pick those points back up? Gale winds really going to do that much on a Raid boss? Or are you that concerned about trash? I'm also seeing people picking up Genesis. Why? Really? I wonder this. Then I came across another post saying to pick it up because of the dot damage.

In a Min/max spec, sure, people can pick up Genesis. But only 1 point of it. With all 5, its barely a 1% dps increase which means its a really bad talent for Balance Druids, however great for resto druids. Onto Gemming which can be tricky depending on what you look forward to do.

A basic thing you can do if you don't fully understand gemming is get your Chaotic Meta, 2 purified and then gem all pure spellpower. Easy, very easy. For those who understand other gems such as Reckless and Potent Ametrines, these can be used to grab socket bonuses. Some people however enjoy using all pure gems such as Quick King Amber's and Smooth King's. These are a no no.

Only pure gem a moonkin will ever want to use is the Runed Cardinal. Because of this, here is a list of what follows with what gems you should use and how to use them should you wish to go for socket bonuses:

Red: Runed Cardinal
Purple: Purified Dreadstone
Orange/Yellow: Potent Ametrine/Reckless Ametrine

A basic misconception is when to use haste over Crit. Use this formula below to figure it out.

Hit>Spellpower> Haste (until 401)>Crit

After 401

Hit>Spellpower>Haste=Crit

Another issue is Gearing. Several moonkin are becoming highly spirit heavy and wondering why they don't have much spellpower. Well, while we do have a spirit conversion with IMP Moonkin form, it doesn't mean spirit is something we want to pick up. While Spirit > Stam in term of gemming and enchants, its not something you want to pick up over spellpower, haste, or crit.

Another thing is glyphs. Several moonkin are starting to use Glyph of Focus and/or Innervate. These are not good choices. There are 4 glyphs a moonkin should use. Starfire, Moonfire, and Starfall/Insect Swarm. You shouldn't have mana problems this late in the game unless you are just starting off as a fresh level 80. With the new Triumph badge system through heroics, its easy to upgrade gear.

A final note, A major issue I am noticing is moonkin who think they know what they are doing, then have guildmates posting on alts on forums asking if they should be doing such and such damage? Or because of it moonkin are labeled Failkin again. Most moonkin have worked hard to get a spot in a raiding guild. Hell, some guilds still won't allow moonkin to this day due to bad moonkin making their experience terrible and getting a stero-type out there that the moonkin tree is terrible.

While Moonkin aren't the best mobile dps'ers, we can still pull our weight in a raid. However, those who give us a bad name as usually the ones who refuse to read up on anything and feel they just know it off the bat. Its these that cause the bad image. So, please remind yourself this, there is always someone better than you out there (Even I know this and I have talked to those better than me), find out what they are doing to achieve numbers (Without massive modifiers like Tricks of The trade, Focus Magic, PI..etc). Don't be afraid to constantly learn. Learning is a good thing! Yes, I know its a video game, but in a raiding guild, its everyone's job to know what they are doing or no one has fun wiping to the same boss over and over.

TL;DR

There are still people out there who don't know what they are doing when it comes to the moonkin spec. Not everyone has right information and not all information is wrong. Read the stickies before going to random people for help.

My Loot List GearSet

As I posted before, my guild uses a Loot Council/List for loot. I've already explained it before but if you didn't catch it, just send me an email and I'll explain it a bit more. But just like last time, I wanted to post the list I created for the Month of Feb.  Here is the set I've come up with.

Helm: Sanctified Lasherweave Helm
Neck: Amulet of Silent Eulogy 
Shoulders: Sanctified Lasherweave Shoulders
Back: Lich Wrappings
Chest: Sanctified Lasherweave Vestments
Bracers: The Lady's Brittle Bracers
Gloves: Sanctified Lasherweave Gloves
Belt: Crushing ColdWraith Belt
Legs: Leggings of Woven Death
Boots: Plague Scientist's Boots
Ring 1: Ashen Band of Endless Destruction
Ring 2: Ring of Rapid Ascent
Trinket 1: Muradin's Spyglass
Trinket 2: Reign of the Dead

Rules of the List:

Rules were set forth with this list since we are going to be in the middle of a new boss with the next month and we don't know how far we will get trying to clear heroic. So we was to follow these rules.

1. No more Trial of the Grand Crusader loot
2. You are not allowed to List Loot from Arthas
3. Only able to go up to Heroic Rotface for loot.
4. No 10man loot allowed on this list (I added the cloak in there so you can see which I was going for)

Why this list?
Well, I decided I wanted my 4pc t10. However, I wanted to keep the Leggings of Woven death. Due to this, Hitcap was going to be under if I went for the Cloak I wanted off Dreamwalker. So to fix that, I went for her 10man version to keep myself Hitcapped. I didn't put down the heroic Version of the Boots either since I'm definitely not the only person after them and we are only allowed 12 slots, in which I added the heroic Vanq Tokens in.

And trinkets, oh god. Don't get me started on trinkets. Anub'arak has only dropped 1 Heroic Version of the Reign and we never saw another. We are terrible with loot, all we get is melee stuff.

Final Stats of this Set(Includes Gemming):
Spellpower: 3622
Crit: 1088
Haste: 864
Hit:  287

Final stats may be incorrect, but shouldn't be completely off.

Death to the Blood Queen!

Yeah, of course I'm gonna post about this! Why wouldn't I? This is a massive dps race!

I wont lie, icecrown isn't hard. Only thing hard is learning fights you never seen with an attempt counter of 10/15. Alot of guilds are running their alts through first to learn the fights, then using the mains for the real attempts. We however don't have geared alts for that (Trying to start up a 25m ICC alt run every week though..I'm a terrible ret :P )

Anyway, We played with this boss only on 10m on the PTR. We kept hitting her enrage around 1-2%. This was in gear before we killed Anub'arak 25m Heroic. So we wasn't really geared. So we should have no issue with her in 10m. However, 25man..OH ELUNELY. You can really bite the bucket on this fight if something goes wrong.

Someone biting the wrong person and people freaking out. Dps not getting bite first, Someone dcing (We had 2 people dc in the same fight..oi) and with them dcing and us wiping, we was afraid they would log in and pull the boss, wasting another attempt. Which I'm sure several people have seen done. Hell, our Feral druid afk ran into Putricide wasting an attempt. And yes, hes the joke of the guild in terms of everyone making fun of him.

Anyway, back to Queen..I sat out for our first Putricide kill since alot of people wanted loot off him and movement kills moonkin dps. Especially with our strat. We have everyone switch sides between oozes so we are always at max distance. So I never get to just stand and cast (would be nice though). Blood Queen however. I can stand and cast for the longest time. I love it! A few attempts I was peaking 10k without bloodlust, pot, Bite, or anything. Then of course there was other times she thought it would be funny to continuely give me the purple fire debuff or link me with 3 other people. Overall, I'm happy with my dps on this fight. Though I could have done better, but looking over the fight, I had stuff that interfered so it wasn't bad play on my part.

Phase 2 is a short time of dps loss, just because of being feared and maybe moving away from people. Either way, it went well when people learned to do what they was supposed to.

Anyway, like I said. I'm overall happy with how I did. And since I had a few people ask me, here is our Guild's Blood Queen Kill Parse!

Happy hunting in Icecrown!

http://www.wowmeteronline.com/combat/11402556#damageout

Nibelung, Valkyr, and AE

First off, I'll start off with how this item first appeared people liked it and hated it. RNG on the first day was terrible. Some people couldn't get it to proc. Others lost a good bit of stats if they tried to equip this weapon. Myself, I lost crit and haste. I used this weapon mainly for heroics just to play with. However, lately I was using it in raids just to get a few parses.

[Nibelung]

The proc of this staff is a Pet Valkyr, it lasts 30 seconds. It has no internal cooldown and some people have seen from 4-6 of them proc'ing off hurricane spam on trash. It can proc on any form of damage spell. Hell, it can even proc off a rip tick as a feral.

The pet itself, is a neat little thing to stare at. Sometimes it picks up the colors of the area around it, so it can color change. But there is an issue with this proc. These things die. I mean, DIE FAST.

Our treants got buffed to resist alot of the AE damage that goes out, so they last longer. These things spawn with 12k health, die in 1 ae. They die all the time for Lady DeathWhisper, standing in the Death and Decay. They die to Bone Storm and ColdFlame. Gunship, I am in a cannon so I never to get to use it. But when I am pushed out, I'll Ae the adds on the boat, It will proc and as soon as I get back in the cannon, it stops its attack. What a waste.

Saurfang it never seems to proc but when it does it can die from being to close to me during Blood Nova.  These things get destroyed during Festergut and Rotface. The professor as well.

What can improve on this weapon?
The main thing that needs to be improved is giving these pets that spawn a Resistance to AE. They die way to fast.  Blizzard however already buffed their damage.

The val’kyrs spawned by the Nibelung staff will now always hit with their smite attack and their damage has been increased for both normal and heroic versions of the staff.

Would you use it?

Even though I lose a bit of stats, yeah..I'd use it for the proc. However with them constantly dieing so fast, it becomes the issue of if their up-time is worth the stat loss.

Anything else to add Mrs. Foofy? 

No, not really, just would like to see these things last longer. I don't care for a pet bar like some people are asking for. Just a little more alive-time would fix alot of the problems.

Druid Teir 10 Sets and Bonuses- A little thinking on my part.

First, lets start off looking at the set bonuses.

# Item - Druid T10 Balance 2P Bonus - When you gain Clearcasting from your Omen of Clarity talent, you deal 10% additional Nature and Arcane damage for 6 sec.
# Item - Druid T10 Balance 4P Bonus - Reduces the cooldown on your Eclipse talent by 6000.

Of course, when you look at the 2piece, you think, why and the hell is Blizzard making us go into the resto tree? Well, my thoughts were already posted on the druid forums in regard to this. Remember though, its my thoughts on this matter, my opinion. Some people may take it to heart and start an uproar.

Just so everyone knows, OOC is and isn't a mandatory talent. At the same time, blizzard putting a set bonus in that uses the resto tree on a balance set is strange, but at the same time, I welcome it. Why do I welcome it? OOC is our best mana regen talent. Its a 100% mana free cast on proc. Unless you have squawk and awe set to show when it procs, you never will notice it. (Or you play with game sounds and hear it)

It works great for General V, but at the same time, isn't a required talent that its going to make or break you in dps unless you have mana issues. Blizzard is probably stepping back and looking at normal moonkin, and the talents we take. Wanting to try and help us out by making a talent we take only for one thing and giving a set bonus piece to make it so we wont fall to far behind on the meters in the next teir of content. Which we do everytime and they try to scale us up accordingly. They are just doing it before hand.

My two cents anyway. Even if it is a place-holder, you know as soon as Icecrown comes out, we'll be low on the meters and they will buff us like every other hybrid.

Those are my thoughts. I believe in the long-run, Blizzard knows 90% of Moonkin pick up this talent anyway, hell, maybe more than that. Its the best mana regen talent we have. 100% free cast. So almost everyone has this. At the same time, its kinda odd its going into the Resto Tree for a Balance Set Bonus. As for our 4pc, this is a placeholder. It has to be. In computer terms, it means the cooldown will be lowered by 6 seconds. Which, if you notice your eclipse got changed last patch, we don't need.

While the eclipse timer cooldown is 30 seconds, it doesn't work like that. We can proc one eclipse after the other. Each is 15 seconds, and by the time we reach our second ending eclipse proc, the cooldown is up and we can proc again. So its 30 seconds from when the first proc happens. Meaning, if I cast Wrath, proc Lunar....starting at that second I proc'd Lunar, the 30 seconds start. Of course, 15 seconds later, Solar procs and at the end of it, Lunar is up again.


Anyway, those are my thoughts on it. 4 piece has to be a filler until something is figured out. The 2pc isn't bad, though odd its going into the resto tree. It may as well be a filler too..Datamined Info is Datamined Info after all.

Loot Council and October Lists

When people hear the word, Loot Council; they usually make an angry face and refuse to be apart of it. Which is highly understandable! Some people have had horrible experiences with a loot council. Some loot councils are terrible. Hell, the bad ones play favorites, its not hard to see. Or people don't like the fact they wont just be handed loot after spending all their points on something that isn't really an upgrade for them. Whatever the reason, I will say this....I love the loot council my guild has.

When I first started looking for a new home, my husband and I came across the recruitment post. It all looked good until he saw it was a loot council. He said he really didn't want to deal with it. He wanted a say/chance at what he wanted. So, at first, we decided not to app. But as time went on, I kept looking back at them. I had been talking with them while the whole drama of Novus was going on (GM missing..people bickering). While talking to one of their officers, I enjoyed everything I heard. They accepted couples, was doing great in progression, and I enjoyed the way he explained their loot council.

For those who are wondering, the loot council is like this:

Players make up a list of 12 items they would like to get. No more than 12, but you can always have less. You number them, 1 to 12 in the order you would like to receive them. So pretty much you are ranking the items you want. 1 being the top of the list, 12 being the least. All the members, officers, and the GM put in the list and at the start of each new month, a Big Boss list is put together. It has everyone's loot list placed on there. However, it has them in order each person put their items. So..Say I put Sufference at 2, and someone else puts it at 1. That person would be ahead of me on the list because they ranked it higher.

If someone has the same item on the list for a month, and continues to the next month with it in the same place and its in a slot higher than 4, it gets a "For x Months". This means the number of months the item has not dropped or the person did not loot it gets added in. So if I leave Sufference at 2 but do not get it for a month, while in the second slot, it has a +1 to it. Meaning its technically in the number 1 slot. So if I got the item I had in the number 1 slot last month, I can put a different item in the number 1 slot and still have a chance at it. Of course, if more months pass and I don't get the item, it will continue to add up until the person with the highest number os +'s gets it.

If two people have the same item in the same slot, it goes to best upgrade. The officers usually as you to link what you currently have or just inspect you. Then they ask if you would need to switch gear out and whatnot. So personally, I love this loot system. It makes people really sit down and plan out their character instead of seeing a purple and just going for it. But the reason for my post is this. I wanted to show up the items I have in mind to go for this month. So I am posting my current BiS list (this means stuff I have access to, not all loot BiS like Graylo has up at his blog cause there is no way in hell I can get ahold of the Aeth' Cloak right now )

• Runetotem's Cover of Triumph -(Received)
  
• Cry of the Val'kyr  
• Runetotem's Mantle of Triumph -(Received)
• Drape of Refreshing Winds 
• Runetotem's Vestments of Triumph 
• Dark Essence Bindings - (Recieved)
  
• Runetotem's Gloves of Triumph 
• Cord of Biting Cold 
• Breeches of Deepening Void 
• Boots of Harsh Winter - (Received)
  
• Nebula Band (Received)
• Lurid Manifestation
  
• Reign of the Unliving 
• Illustration of the DragonSoul (Received)
• Sufferings End 
• Mystifying Charm 

 The reason I am using this list is its stuff I have current access to, as I already said. I'm holding onto my dragonsoul for now cause we have terrible luck with trinkets. But other than that, this is what my list will look like for next month. We are currently working on Heroic Anub, but I know several other people have stuff listed much higher than my original list would allow.

Brewfest!

Its that time of the year again when Brewfest comes to Azeroth! This time with the new achievement tab placed in, people are doing more than just collecting mounts!

People are picking up anything alcoholic and just having fun! However, there are goggles in the game you can put on that allow you to see the Tingers and Pink Elks should you not wish to become intoxicated and keep yourself simple and clean of the evil.

There are several achievements this year:

• Drunken Stupor: Fall 65 yards without dying while completely smashed during the Brewest Holiday.

This achievement is very easy to obtain for Horde of Alliance. You can go to Shatt and jump off the side of the Scryer's Teir. Or you can go to Undercity and go to the Zep that takes you to Grom. When it gets there, get yourself smashed and jump off the side, aiming for the lowest point in the ground below you. Going kitty form will help you incase you fall a bit further than you want. However, iceblocking doesn work if you are a mage.

• Strange Brew:  Drink the beers listed Below

All the stuff you need can easily be bought off vendors. If you have trouble getting any off the troll (Horde side) I suggest stepping inside the tent and trying to buy. There is currently a bug in game not allowing you to buy if you are outside the tent.

• The Brewfest Diet
  

This just speaks for itself. Everything can be bought off the vendor. Also, we all remember the Dark Iron Attacks. Well, now you can miss it and still get the achievement. After they attack, an item lands on the ground and you can go pick it up at anytime, until another attack of course.

All the achievements are really easy to get. Only one that may take some time is the one that requires you to have 3 pieces of clothing that you are going to get drunk in. Unless you have tickets from last year. Also, don't forget that after you do the ram daily, you can talk to the guy again and offer to work for him again! This gives you 2 tickets per barrel you bring back!

So, for those who are after the mounts, its still the Kodo and the Ram that are available. If you are unable to get these mounts to drop (cause rng is great and all) you can use Hops on your mount and still get the achievement.

So, have fun at Brewfest this year and enjoy your new titles!

I've Decided

I took some time to really think about it for the past 2 weeks. Azamath himself is not moving from his stance on not going Alliance. Due to this, I wanted to really sit back and think about what I have now and what I would have on Alliance Side.


Horde side Pros

• A Great Guild
• A husband to steal mats and gold off of
• Several farmer alts to help my main out
• Great Friends
• My Cow's Tail
• An Overpowered Emote ( /Moo)
• Lower Population (Easier to get to know people)

Horde Side Cons

• Expensive Prices to buy stuff off the AH
• Low Population (Hard to find people at certain times of the day)
• Large Hit Box (People can reach me from really far away, and I get stuck in doors easily)
• Blood Elves (/twitch)

Alliance Side Pros

• Cheap AH Prices
• Larger Population
• More Min/Maxing to raids (1% to hit anyone?)
• Smaller hitboxes (Night Elf)
• Shadowmeld
  

Alliance Side Cons

• Night Elves (are fat and ugly!)
• I'd lose my tail :(
• To large of a population (I don't like being on an overpopulated side, makes me feel like a copycat)
• Gnomes
• Night Elves again
• Did I say Gnomes yet?

Well, needless to say, The best things  for the Horde side are things I already have. Sure our Auction House prices are terrible and its much easier just to have an alliance alt and buy stuff off their AH and bring it over then work from our own, but its still nice. At least on Staghelm. While there are idiots on Horde side (and yes there are many on the Alliance side too) the small population makes me feel as if I know everyone. I can usually pick out familiar faces easily, know when to group with them and when to not answer and pretend to be AFK when I get tells.


Another thing I wanted to look at was my hitbox. I've been a Female Tauren for years now, I can't stand playing a character without a tail for every long. Unless its my Paladin Tank (Who is going tauren as soon as race changes come!) I tried leveling a gnome once. I couldn't stand that the grass in the area was taller than me. I missed the fact that when I would type /Moo...There was no moo sound. At the same time however, I love the fact while playing other toons about how I can fit through doors. Undercity owns Tauren, no doubt about it. I usually end up using Travel Form throughout the whole place since the elevators don't like Tauren.

Still going on with the hitbox, PVP doesn't help either. While some people think Warstomp in PVP is OP, its not very good for a Balance druid who has a melee raping their face in. Unless I'm gonna run over and warstomp a caster, I don't see me using it. Only time I've ever successfully used Warstomp was back in BC when I had high Armor and there wasn't all of those damn Armor Reduction Abilities on every melee swing.

Another thing that slowly nitpicks at me during the day is the difference between Horde and Alliance I have grown to hate is my forms. Being a druid, I'm stuck in forms 98% of the time when raiding. Because of this..The Horde moonkin form is terrible to me.  I even cheated and tried model edits once. Yeah, I wont lie. I really can't stand looking like this. I don't use them anymore though, I really didn't like taking the chance to lose all my hard work for something as stupid as looks in a video game.

I will admit, I tried to get used to it, I joke all the time about my Feathery butt, my ugliness scaring away the Alliance and more, but at the end of the day, I just can't stand looking at this form. BUT! I figured I should go on about what I have decided. I decided I will stay Horde. For my friends, my guild, my sanity, and my Husband. But I also made a second choice too. I will be going Troll come Race Changes for Druids. Thats right. Unless they make the new Tauren Racials Good, or something that I would atleast have fun with, I will just go Troll. Not because of the graphics (they are all getting redone anyway), but because I want to be able to fit through doors, look a bit better in my gear, and be able to dance like a suga momma!

FOOFY HAS A SECRET SHE DIDN'T TELL US!

Yeah, I have one toon I have yet to put on my character list for contacts. I'm actually going to redo the list here in a few days to update with all the toons I actually log on to more than once a month. But here is the thing I have been really keeping secret...

I have a little Night Elf Druid named Foofe on my server. Shes level 40 and I have been leveling her off and on. She was going to be my Reroll toon, then I stopped when they announced the Faction Transfers (see, I really was ready to go all the way kids!) Since the Faction Transfer announcement, I've kinda abandoned her, but I liked going into Low level BGS and owning as a little moonkin. Get my kicks in before I ever max her out.

So, yeah..

TL;DR

Foofy is going Troll come Race Change unless Tauren get an OP Racial.





ALSO! As a final note, WTB banner for this site! I used to be able to use photoshop and whatnot, but after I had to reformat due to a soundcard effort, I lost it. So, if you have some good skills with banners and would like to contribute, let me know! I'm just looking for a banner to fit across the top (until the dotted line)

Meow..Woof...RAWR!

I'm sure several people have heard about the World of Warcraft Podcast called RawrCast. The hosts are Stompalina and Hafrot, the Guild Masters of Bound, actually on my server.

Well, Stompalina didn't really know I was on her server until a post appeared on our realm forums about the podcast. I heard of the site, RawrbitchRawr, but I never really looked into it. After responding to it, along with a bad Troll post(which got deleted cause he was a bad troll to begin with) Stompalina tracked me down and sent me an email!


"Funny that you should post on a Staghelm thread about our show. I just got a listener request to have you on as a guest today. They directed me to your forum, and BAM, you are on Staghelm. lol

Are you free to chat on Skype in the coming week? I am free Friday, Sunday or most any afternoon."

Thanks,
Stompalina


Well, I responded back saying I'd be happy to join. However, little did I know what she really had up her sleeve!

Upon deciding a date, she placed me down for September 19,2009. Next week to be exact and well, does everyone know what day that is?..

International Talk like a Pirate day.

Ho'boy. Also, her new site launches that weekend too! So, Its like..Oh Hey! Foofy is going to be on the show and I'm gonna make her talk like a Pirate! Not to mention she wants to do something new with the show that will probably get me killed in the end because I'm a Bloodsail.

Ah, many broken hearts!


Anyway! Yeah! I'll be on the Podcast next week, and if you didn't catch last weeks, you should download it. It was pretty funny to listen to, until she totally called me out for wiping her heroic ToC!

Look, I didn't mean to! I swear! I'm just used to mass pulling all the adds before the second boss, so I hit starfall and then hung my head in shame as I saw they only pulled one group!

HOW WAS I TO KNOW?! D:

Which way did he go George?! Which way did he go?!

Well, the title kinda goes with what I wanted to say, well, actually ask everyone. With the new Expansion, we gain two new races with the ability to become a druid. Worgen (inc nerd screams) and Trolls. Now, this isn't a good or bad thing. However, people who are druids today really had no choice in what they wanted to be.

It was you either are Horde or Alliance. Didn't matter if you liked Night Elves or Tauren, it just mattered if you liked the class and the faction all together. Well, as probably several of you know, I went Druid after I joined the game as a Night Elf Hunter (like an idiot). Back then, no one wanted to be a Druid, why? Well, why the hell would you?

Druids weren't the best healers. We had what? 1 Good hot (Regrowth was terrible and you deserved a Gkick if you used it). Healing touch was slow but our main healing spell. We didn't have Tree form until near AQ40/Naxx. We used to have to be spec'd for Innervate just to Innervate a Priest or hell, even a mage during the Zerg during Nef. We wasn't wanted but for our Mark of the Wild. That was it. There are plenty of times a raid would just have a Druid sit outsit and buff people and let other people go in their place.  Of course we became Overpowered Healers in Burning Cursade, but that was a given.

Anyway, back to the point at hand, with these two new races, I'm really looking at switching to one for the next Expansion. As soon as they said they was placing in Faction Changes, I was like "WOO WOO" and first thought about all the raid buffs. 1% to hit, shadowmeld for world pvp, being on the larger faction population for cheaper prices in regards to stuff off the Auction House. It was a min/max'ers dream.

However, I also posted earlier in my Blog, I'm technically married to the Horde. My husband doesn't want to go Alliance. Though he says the Human Racials are Overpowered and he would probably go it if need be. I also love my guild and have no reason just to get up and leave. So I'm stuck at a cross-road.

I have a Female Troll Alt, I can't stand looking at her. Shes my herbalist and skinner, nothing but. I hate the Female troll animations. They're terrible! Always so stiff and they never blink. I loved the original female troll model.



Sure, shes not the best looking thing on Azeroth, but damnit! She wasn't stiff as a board, she had movement! So this is one major turn off about Trolls. Well, the female ones anyway. I enjoy the male models, they flow and seem more perfected then the Females. However, I still don't think I want to make a Male Troll Druid. So I looked at Night Elves and Worgen. The Female Worgen Model hasn't been released yet, but I love their racials, very much..oh so very much. It would be good for PVP and PVE. Now, not saying the Goblins racial's aren't great, I really wish they somehow came up with Lore to allow Goblins to be druids, then I'd be all over that like stank from a dead Skunk alongside the road.

So, as I said, my Husband is trying to keep me horde, and telling me to just make a Troll Male if I do a race change, but at the same time, what options do I have? Male troll. Thats right, just one. While I could have 2 choices with Alliance along with all the benefits of being on the larger population. Then again, I'm sure everyone is going Worgen. Now, some people are like "Don't Leave the Cow!" well, sometimes, I just get tired of not being able to fit through doors, looking as if I can't dress myself because half the time my gear looks terrible on me and my forms..Oi. I mean, its nice to get a new cat and bear form, but I'm really tired of horns on everything. I'm not looking forward to our Moonkin form redone. But I would love to see the Troll Druid forms, thats for sure.

So, I figured I would put up a poll on this. Tell me which one you think I should go and why. I understand Racial's are being redone but you know how it works, few races will get great stuff, then the rest will get shafted!

2p T9 and Nature's Grace

I wanted to let everyone know about this topic as it has come up on the Moonkin Forums. Some people feel that if your moonfire can now crit, it should proc the spell Nature's Grace.


Lets first start off with the Nature's Grace Spell.

The spell itself as you can see from the link has the following tooltip,
All spell criticals have a 100% chance to grace you with a blessing of nature, increasing your spell casting speed by 20% for 3 sec.

This means, each time you crit, you gain 20% casting speed for 3 seconds. The old spell used to be with your next cast. The newer version allows us to get more than just one cast off with the benefit of the casting speed. Now, looking at the 2pc t9 bonus..

Your Moonfire ability now has a chance for its periodic damage to be critical strikes.

So, now to the main info at hand. More than some of you I'm sure read Graylo's Blog. Hes already posted an idea for gear on the 2pc and the 4pc. If you want to read it, you are more than welcomed to. However, several people are probably going to end up using the 2pc t9 for a long time to come.

There are also rumors going around that the Crit from the Moonfire Tick allows Nature's Grace to proc. I remember testing this personally on the PTR when it came available and here are my results.



From the screenshot, you can see I have underlined the times my Moonfire Crit. Now some people are going to say "Oh, you have such and such turned off in your combat log!"

Wrong, I had everything turned on for this and as you can see, I did not gain any benefit to Nature's Grace. You can also see that I gained no mana return either. Now, I can agree why this is the way it is. We nearly have a constant uptime of NG as is. There is no need to add anymore time to it.

Now, this is just from the PTR when I tested it, if its fixed, then..coolbeans..I guess we will have NG up more often. But, yeah..here is the information for those who are looking for it.

Death's Demise, Foofy! Reporting in!

Its time for me to post something about myself and my Husband!

We did it! After 2 weeks of attempts, rng screwing us over with picking people to send into beams and whatnot with Malady..we did it.

Took some tweaking and everyone blew out my ears when it happened, but it happened! We claimed the Server first Alone in the Darkness! Yeah, his health is nerfed, but its still not just a fight you can just walk into and expect to win. It actually still takes a good bit of DPS to keep up with the tentacles uptop and the brain room down below.

So, yeah..its over..its done. And I want to give a huge shoutout to my Husband who won the mount! Grats Azamath! Well deserved!




Now make me a sandwich.

I wanted, had to, did

Yeah, I went there! I wasted my time away making a quick 45 second video for TMR's Contest. Though I can't officially enter, doesn't mean I can't have fun either!





And yes, I know about the eclipse change, as soon as detailed info is available and testing is done on the PTR, I will create a video with the information as soon as I can!

A few Posts to keep us Up-To-Date!

Well, Murmurs decided to make a post on the TMR forums and WoW forums asking for all raiding moonkin to show their parses. No matter how great or small in damage you dealt, he wanted to see it. There was a good reason for this, he wanted to try and find out if moonkin damage is to low. Instead we got a few blue responses to our plea!

Hello again.

I am here this time to make a plea, to beg, to grovel, and to pray for a change.

There is a significant portion of the Balance Druid community that is not happy. I cannot pretend to speak for all of them, merely those whom I know and read posts, blogs, and e-mails from, but given the small representation of our spec in all environments, I would venture to guess that I know a good enough amount.

But, I digress, I come here to beg for some communication, for some understanding, and, hopefully, for some dialogue. And I am not begging GC or any other developer, I am begging the Druid community - and the entire WoW community at that.

There are some Balance Druids that are of the mind set that Balance Druid DPS is too low, there are some that think we are just fine. It's a massive disconnect within the community where it's beginning to become difficult to discern what's real and what isn't.

So, what I want are numbers and information. I want to see reports of any kind of any variable of DPS. I want to see reports of Druids failing, or them succeeding. I want to know their rotations, their specs, their raid buffs, their gear, everything and anything.

There are an infinite number of ways to tweak or adjust Balance Druid DPS should it need to be, but without knowing if things need to change, then suggestions can't be made and the developers can't really know. Yes, Blizzard has their own tools, yes they probably, certainly know the situation better than anyone, but I want to know too.

If we can weed through all of the data, then perhaps we can come to a definite conclusion.

So, talk to me; I'm listening.

----------Response
We think Balance dps is a little low on live, but changing Improved Moonkin Form to 30% Spirit to Spellpower in 3.1.2 should be something like a 5% spellpower boost to raid-buffed druids, which should be around a 5% dps increase. YMMV.

Also keep in mind that the Ulduar fights are pretty diverse. Fights like XT are a dream for melee, especially rogues and cats.

Please honor the spirit (rimshot) of the OP's thread though and confine this discussion to that topic and not try and switch gears to other druid issues or other class issues just because I posted here. :)

-----------Response 2
doesn't affect the base dmg of spells. Unless you're increasing those by 5% too

I'm sorry but I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. Are you worried about the damage done by Moonkin wearing no gear and no buffs? Usually when players are concerned about low PvE dps, it's an end-game raiding concern. Hardly anything affects the base damage of spells except the spell rank.

------------Response 3
As I've said a few times, it's pretty tricky to calculate "real" dps in Ulduar because there are so few Patchwerk-like fights. That is actually to some extent by design because it gets players to focus more on "How do I maximize my dps on this fight?" rather than "What's my dps?" But it does make estimating who is high or low tricky for both you and us. It's awesome you are taking names, and I'll attribute that to knowing how to gear and play your class. We do worry that the Scorch change hurt Balance and Elemental since we ended up partially compensating the mages.

The basic design problem for Balance, as I know you know, comes down to Wrath and Stafire just being very similar spells. One is always going to win out by virtue of damage or cast time. Eclipse was our attempt to make which one wins more dynamic. I think it accomplishes that, but I think it's also fair to say that there aren't a ton of druids who are in love with the talent. Or maybe it's more fair to say that there are druids who just can't stand it. It's also not swell that the talent has driven many druids to mods to help manage it.

We're not going to give you a rotation that ends up being something like SF, Wrath, SF, Wrath or even SF x4, Wrath x4. We just think that's too boring and ultimately bad for the game. You can argue that you like Balance because it's very predictable and macro-able, but it should be clear that we view that as a problem.

I'm in total hand-waving, brainstorm mode here. This is not a design we have cooking that we're all ready to implement, but imagine Eclipse worked something like this: Every Starfire you cast has a 20% cumulative chance of making your next Wrath do 30% more damage. So after SF1, the chance is 20%, but after SF5 the chance is 100%. That encourages you to swap spells somewhat randomly, but less random than the system we have now. The goal is to have something where you sometimes switch after SF 3 and sometimes after SF 5. Good druids would always switch at the right time and those who are still trying to maximize their potential could get better about switching at the right time. You could also have a system where every SF has a chance of making Wrath slightly better, with a stack on that effect, so that at some point it's the right time to switch. Don't feel the need to point out how you could game this system -- I spent all of 2 minutes coming up with it. If and when we decide to change it, we'd put far more work into the design.

--------------------------------More responses

Personally I'm beginning to disagree with measuring by this method. If every class is going to do the same dps on patchwerk, what happens when we fight a real boss? Some specs lose a lot more dps than others by moving, and you have to question what worth some specs have in a real encounter...

Yes. This is a tremendously important concept that a lot of players seem to miss. When you only focus on Patchwerk or training dummies or simcraft, you can come up with a number that may be higher or lower than other specs or classes. The problem is that number is meaningless in many other fights. Do you have to move? Do you have to deal with adds? Do you have to swap out gear to improve your health? Do you run OOM? Is your threat too high? Do you need to free NPCs? All of those are "real" considerations on the actual bosses you're trying to kill.

The real questions, which have somewhat frustratingly fuzzy answers, are: Do you justify a raiding slot? Are you pulling your weight? Would your group be better off replacing you? Does the rogue beat you because your class is undertuned or because it's a perfect fight for a rogue (or because you need to L2P)?


A Mechanic that I do like is the instant Fireball proc that Frost Mages get. When that ability procs, they have something like a 10-second window in which they can cast a Fireball instantly. That means that they aren't punished if they have to move, and they have some control over when they consume the buff. (Please note that's ignoring the fact that Frost PvE DPS is terrible right now).

Totally agree that Brain Freeze is a pretty good mechanic. It works though because Frost never wants to use Fireball normally. For Balance, we need to keep both nukes in play. The spec is less fun to play (for me anyway) when Starfire or Wrath clearly wins and you just nuke with that spell.

An ideal rotation, if we can make it work, would be more like SF x 3-6 then Wrath x 3-6, with Insect Swarm, Moonfire and the rest thrown in as needed. The "3-6" means that if you switch at the wrong time, your dps is still decent, but if you switch at the right time, your dps is better. But it can't be a 100% predictable number or there is no learning -- no opportunity to improve your game -- involved.

Idol of the Crying Wind

A few people have been asking about this on the forums, as well as have been asking me ingame. Murmurs has already done the math so I'll just copy and paste it here. Please note, these are just with the basic stats.


Spell Power - 2244
Haste - 18.15%
Crit - 22%

Base Damage - No Idols applied

Insect Swarm Damage
(215 + (2244 * 0.2)) * (1.03) * (1.04) * (1.13) * (1.03) * (1.3) = 1075.88743 per tick

Insect Swarm Cast Time
1.5 / 1.16 = 1.29

Starfire Damage
(1130 + (2244 * 1.2)) * (1.1) * (1.03) * (1.04) * (1 + (.26 * 1.09) * 1) * (1.13) = 6532.58854

Average Starfire Cast Time
(3 / ((1 + (18.15 / 100))) / (1 + (.2 * (1-(1-.26)^2)) = 2.33

Idol of the Crying Winds -

Insect Swarm Damage
(277 + (2244 * 0.2)) * (1.03) * (1.04) * (1.13) * (1.03) * (1.3) = 1176.37706

This is an increase of 101 damage per tick. At 7 ticks, that's a total of 707 damage over 14 seconds or 50.5 DPS.

Idol of the Shooting Star
(1295 + (2244 * 1.2)) * (1.1) * (1.03) * (1.04) * (1 + (.26 * 1.09) * 1) * (1.13) = 6814.54865

This is an increase of approximately 282 damage per cast (technically it's 281.96011, but I digress) at an average cast time of 2.33, that's an increase of 121 DPS. But that is merely a raw DPS increase to the spell, since we're attempting to maximize damage you have to look a bit deeper.

As I said, Idol of the Crying Winds is 707 over 14 seconds, nothing you can do will increase how fast you get this additional damage, it will always occur over 14 seconds.

Idol of the Shooting Star only adds 282 damage per Starfire cast. It takes 2.5 Starfire casts in order for the damage added from Idol of the Shooting Star to equal the damage increase given by Idol of the Crying Winds. Since you can't really do 1/2 of a cast, we'll just set it to 3.

So, it takes 6.99 seconds for Idol of the Shooting Star to increase your damage by more than Idol of the Crying Winds. This still leaves approximately 7 seconds, half of Insect Swarm's duration, to further increase the gain.

Clearly, the Starfire Idol is better.

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For those who like more indepth math, here's Graylo's

http://graymatterwow.blogspot.com/2009/04/guide-to-moonkin-idols.html
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So please, understand, this idol is terrible. Don't get it. Maybe for ilvl, but really now...